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When Iris and Gabriel arrive home from a getaway, they are surprised to find a dear friend at their house. Laure and her husband, Pierre, have been the couple’s friends for 20 years, and the two couples have often stayed at the other’s homes. But Laure is alone this time. She is devastated because Pierre has told her he’s learned he had a child from a brief affair. Iris and Gabriel are shocked and saddened but willing to help support her in this difficult time.
But Laure’s supposedly short stay turns into days and then weeks. And as she wears Iris’s clothes and talks exclusively about her distress and heartbreak, it wears on Iris and Gabriel. They have their own problems, and those certainly aren’t going away as time moves on.
When a couple move into a lovely house at the other end of their small town, Iris is especially happy to have the prospect of good new friends. Esme and Hugh are open and fun and equally eager to get to know Iris and Gabriel. They also have brought along an old friend of Esme’s, a handsome landscape gardener who is helping them shape up the yard. But Iris and Gabriel each find out that he and possibly Esme are hiding some things.
All the secrets and stresses eventually come to a head, with fatal consequences.
I’ve enjoyed some of B.A. Paris’s previous books (like The Breakdown), and I like particularly that most have been clean. The Guest fell flat for me (well, so did The Prisoner), with a continuous thread of unvaried prose and uninspired dialogue. The only thing I really liked was the end, where the author serves up a pretty delicious twist. But given that the other 90 percent of the book was just so-so, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it just for the last part.
Rated: Mild. Profanity includes a few instances of moderate profanity, 5 uses of mild language, two uses of British (bl-) profanity, and about 20 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content is limited to mentioning sex or knowing it’s happening but with no details. Violence includes several murders, with minimal gore or detail.
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*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
